The Diablo Formula and how Diablo 3 falls short

[Archon_Wing]

$60 retail price / 300 hrs play time = $0.20/hr

Twenty cents an hour. How many times did you walk into an arcade in the 80's drop in a single quarter and play for an hour? Even if Diablo 3 doesn't deliver everything one might hope for, its hard to argue that it didn't deliver value. For my own sake, I have less time in total with my purchases of the God of War series and 2 of the Elder Scrolls titles which probably cost me $250.

I'm not saying that Diablo 3 delivered 0 value. I'm saying that it holds no future potential for value from what I can see, which is why I would continue it. And trying to quantify entertainment is silly at best, since does anyone enjoy all of the time played? Most of the stuff was just busy work to get to the "good stuff" which didn't last too long. I also bought Civ IV and expansions for about $15 and spent more than 500 hours on that. 15/500= $0.03 ? And that game had tons of memorable moments even though it was a very flawed game.

Besides, if we were to quantify it like that... then I would say Diablo 2 is 10x the game as Diablo 3 so... :p

And I guess you're asking the wrong person, since I never liked playing at arcades. :S